


Five Conversations Lisa and Dan Had Without Killing Each Other (Although Sometimes It Came Close)

by mardia



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-24
Updated: 2009-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardia/pseuds/mardia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Although sometimes, they did come awfully close.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Conversations Lisa and Dan Had Without Killing Each Other (Although Sometimes It Came Close)

_one: when I'm not sure what I'm looking for_

"Thanks so much for doing this, Dan," Lisa said, rummaging around in her purse for her earrings.

Dan shrugged, his hands shoved into his pockets. "No problem. You know I love hanging out with Charlie."

Lisa smiled as she finally fished out her earrings. "Still, watching a toddler on a Friday night can't be your idea of fun." She put an earring in, trying to shake off the awkwardness she always seemed to feel around Dan.

"Really, I don't mind," Dan said, smiling.

She nodded, putting in the other earring. "Good." She looked up the stairs to the bathroom, where Casey still wasn't finished getting ready. "Casey!"

"Be down in a minute," Casey called out.

Dan snorted. "Anyone who said women take a long time to get ready hasn't met Casey."

Lisa laughed. "Don't I know it." It was weird, she thought aimlessly to herself, that she didn't feel more comfortable around Dan. He was Casey's best friend, he was a perfectly nice guy who both her husband and her son adored.

It was just that...when Casey was around Dan, he changed somehow. It wasn't that he and Dan were friends, it was that they were _such_ good friends, to the point where whenever Dan was around, not only did she feel a little shut out, but it almost felt as though her husband turned into an almost-stranger, someone she didn't quite know.

There were quick footsteps coming down the stairs, and both Lisa and Dan turned around, waiting for Casey to appear.

 

_two: now everything's about to fall apart_

Lisa was a light sleeper, always had been, which was why she could hear the key turning in the front door, and the faint scuffling going on outside.

Knowing that Casey was back from a night out with the guys, Lisa slowly got out of bed and padded in her bare feet down the stairs to the door. She got there just as it opened, Casey stumbling inside with his arm thrown around Dan, who was clearly supporting most of his weight.

Lisa raised an eyebrow at the two of them. "Boys," she said, feeling both amused and a little like her own mother.

Dan looked sheepish, but Casey just flashed her a huge, goofy smile. "Lisa!"

"Casey," she said calmly. "Dan, what's going on?"

"Jagermeister," Dan said. "A _lot_ of Jagermeister."

"Ah," Lisa said, rolling her eyes, and looking at Casey. "You do realize in the morning you'll be wanting to off yourself, right?"

"Ah, but tonight, my dear," Casey said, wagging a finger at her. "Tonight we ate, we drank, we were merry."

Lisa sighed. "Has he been quoting Shakespeare all evening?"

"Yep," Dan said in mock-irritation. "Gotta say, I've never seen him so--"

"It's the Jagermeister," Lisa explained, going to her husband's side and throwing his other arm around her shoulders. "Don't know why, but whenever he gets Jagermeister in his system--"

"He turns into a crazy, Shakespeare-quoting, Spanish-speaking lunatic?"

Oh, boy. "He was speaking Spanish?"

Dan nodded. "And French and German too. Our boy is multilingual, ain't you?"

"_Hablo muchas idiomas_," Casey said solemnly. Dan shared an exasperated look with Lisa, who fought the urge to giggle. It was just so ridiculous.

"C'mon, sweetie, let's get you to bed," Lisa prompted.

As they carefully made their way to the bedroom, Dan asked her curiously, "Does he always do this? Just randomly start talking in Spanish when he feels like it?"

Before she could answer, Casey piped up, "Only when we're in bed," and Lisa could feel her face turning bright red.

"Casey!" she hissed, mortified. On the other side of her ridiculous, embarrasing husband, she thought she heard Dan stifling a snicker.

Casey looked down at her and asked, in all innocence, "What? Was I not supposed to say that?"

Lisa let out a long sigh. "No, honey, you're not supposed to give people details about our sex life. At least not where _I can hear you._"

Okay, that sound Dan just made was definitely a snicker. And as soon as the color of Lisa's face turned back to normal (she gave a quick thanks to God that the house was still mostly dark and that Dan couldn't see her) she was going to kick something. Probably Casey.

Somehow they got Casey up the stairs to the bedroom and deposited him on the bed, face up, sleepy and pliant. As Dan worked at his shoes, Lisa ran a hand through her husband's hair and said softly, "Hey, Dan, I'm going to get him a glass of water. Mind watching him for a second?"

"No problem," Dan said, so Lisa went downstairs to the kitchen, where she filled a glass with water from the sink. She tiptoed back up the stairs, hoping that her luck would hold and Charlie would stay asleep. The bedroom door was still open, and she walked in--

And there was Dan, sitting on the bed next to Casey, running his hand through Casey's hair, just the way Lisa had a moment ago. Casey was asleep, Lisa could tell from the even rise and fall of his chest, and Dan was--the way he was _looking_ at Casey--Lisa _knew_ that look, it was the look she saw in the mirror when she was trying something on and Casey would come up from behind to kiss her on the neck.

Oh. Oh, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe and the glass would slip out of her hands and fall on the floor and--

"Sweet dreams, Case," Dan said in a low voice, and she had to be imagining this, she had to be reading this wrong--but the _look on his face..._

She must have shifted her weight, made a noise, something, because Dan looked up and saw her. And if Lisa hadn't been sure before, she was positive now, because Dan immediately took his hand away from Casey's hair like he'd been burned, and quickly got off the bed. "He just dropped off to sleep," Dan said awkwardly, like he hadn't just been doing...God, Lisa didn't even know _what_ he'd been doing. "You're not gonna have any trouble with him tonight..." His voice trailed off and he said uncertainly, "Lisa..."

Lisa took a breath, then another, and said as evenly as she could (which wasn't very), "You need to leave. Now."

Part of her was expecting Dan to fight her on this, to ask what was wrong, to tell her she was misinterpreting things. And if he had, maybe Lisa would have believed him, maybe she would have been able to pretend that everything was alright, but instead--

His shoulders went rigid, and Dan just said, "Okay."

Lisa followed him to the door, and shut it behind him. She went back to her bedroom and lay down next to Casey, who slept on, oblivious. She tried to fall asleep, and she tried not to think back on all that time, all those years of friendship, all those casual pats to the back, all those times she'd felt shut out when Dan would enter the room.

Lisa tried very hard not to think about any of it. She failed, and she stayed awake for a long time.

 

_three: with the words stuck in my throat_

"We going to talk about this?"

They were holding a barbeque outside, and in the distance, Lisa could hear Casey's voice ringing out, happy and relaxed. It was the last few days of summer, before Dan would go back to Dartmouth and Lisa could finally be rid of him. "I don't really think there's anything to talk about," Lisa said calmly.

"Lisa." Dan's voice was so calm, so patient, and it made Lisa want nothing more than to throw something at him. "Look, I'm not going to insult your intelligence by pretending you didn't see what you did, but--"

"We're not talking about this, Dan."

"I think we should," Dan pressed. "You--you have to want to say something to me, I know you do--"

"You can't have him," Lisa burst out, her voice shaky and tremulous, and she hated that, hated feeling so insecure. She turned around, bracing herself against the counter. And what might have hurt the most was that Dan didn't look cocky or condescending. He just looked tired and sad, and that made it so much harder to hate him.

"He's my husband, Dan," she continued, because it needed to be said, she had to say it, she was bursting to say it. "He's my husband and the father of my kid, and what the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

"I'm not doing anything," Dan said, which was a joke. He didn't have to do anything, all he had to do was _be_ there. "You're right. Casey's your husband, he's Charlie's father, and I'm not going to disrespect that--"

Lisa let out a choked laugh. "Yeah, yeah--you lusting after my husband is _such_ a show of respect for our marriage, Danny." Dan winced at the bitter sarcasm.

Lisa gripped the counter and said, every word precise, "We are not talking about this. I cannot talk about this with you, because you're Casey's best friend, and because my son adores you, and because discussing this with Casey is the last thing either of us want. So if you don't mind, I'd really love nothing more than to pretend that the torch you're carrying for my husband doesn't, in fact, exist."

Dan looked at her, his jaw tight, and just at the moment where Lisa was going to have to let out a scream of frustration or go crazy--Charlie toddled into the kitchen on his chubby legs, Casey right on his heels. "Oh, hey," he said. "Charlie got into the barbeque sauce," --and sure enough, there were telltale stains all over her son's face, even in his hair, "--so I just thought I'd..." Casey trailed off as he looked at them, then asked, "Is everything all right?"

"Yeah," Dan said smoothly, giving Casey a crooked grin. "Yeah, everything's fine."

"Everything's fine," Lisa echoed.

Casey accepted that with a simple nod, and lifted Charlie into his arms.

 

_four: here's to your fate_

It was turning out to be a gorgeous day. The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and Lisa hated it. But then, she hated nearly everything about Dallas, but mostly she just hated that it wasn't LA, where she and Casey could be living right now, with no Dana and no Dan.

And if Dan Rydell didn't have such a hold on her husband, they might have been living in Los Angeles, and Lisa wouldn't be wondering if her marriage was going to end soon.

The doorbell rang and Lisa went to get it.

And of course, of course--it was Dan at the door.

"Casey's not here," she said automatically.

"Where is he?" Dan asked.

"Out with Charlie getting some ice cream," Lisa said, omitting that Casey was taking their son out as an apology for the screaming match between his parents last night that Charlie must have heard, because the walls in his bedroom were thin, and because they had been yelling loud enough to wake the dead.

Dan just nodded. "All right. I'll come back later."

"You should call," Lisa said as he turned back towards the door. "If you're going to come over, I'd appreciate it if you called first."

Dan turned around, and although Lisa could see his jaw clenching with all the words he was biting back, all he said was, "Fine. I'll keep that in mind. Anything else?"

Lisa looked at him, at this man who held her husband's loyalty to the point where Casey would choose a small, local sports show in Texas over hosting _Late Night_, who Casey loved so completely, and she wanted nothing more than to hurt him, to draw some blood.

Lisa wanted to have a good, old-fashioned screaming match that she didn't have to feel guilty for, and Dan was there, Dan was _always_ there, and that was the problem.

Dan's eyes were hard as he finally snapped out. "If there's something you want to say to me, Lisa, now's the time. Casey's not around; there's no one here to play nice for."

Lisa could feel herself tensing up, and she snapped out, "You just think you can come in here and lay claim to whatever you like, don't you."

Dan looked like he was actually considering it. "Now that you mention it, yeah. I do."

Lisa had always considered herself to be a compassionate, nice, decent person, but in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to hurt Dan Rydell, and to hurt him badly. "Fuck you."

"Careful, Lise. There's a little green showing in your eyes there."

"What," Lisa shot back, "--you think you can take the high road here? I'm not the one lusting after a married man, that would be you. Oh, and let's not forget _Dana_...hell, maybe the two of you should start a little fanclub or something--"

"What the _hell_ is your problem!" Dan snapped out, fury written all over his face. Not just fury, a kind of bewilderment that made something in her ache, suddenly. "Jesus Christ, Lisa, you think I _want_ to be in love with your husband? You think I don't know that he's straight? You think this is _easy?_"

He started to advance on her, making sharp, stabbing motions with his hands. "I get it, you don't like the situation. Well guess what, none of us do. I don't like it, Dana doesn't like it, God knows Casey's utterly miserable, and the hell of it is that he doesn't even have a clue why."

He looked at her and said sharply, angrily, "You want to yell and say snide things to me, fine. But what the hell are you punishing Casey for anyway? He's got nothing to do with this."

Lisa let out a choked laugh at that. "Yeah. Sure he doesn't." Casey had everything to do with this, he was the catalyst for everything, even when it wasn't about him, it was. He was the unspoken issue in every awkward conversation with Dana, every cloaked barb she threw at Dan.

Casey was the crux of the issue, because Casey had turned down _Late Night_ for Dan, despite the spin he tried to put on it, it was Casey that lit up when Dan would come into the room, it was Casey who would invite Dan to as many of their family dinners as he could get away with.

And then Dan was saying, "You know what I think? I think this wouldn't be _nearly_ as much of an issue if you actually trusted your husband. Jesus Christ, Lisa--what, you think Casey's cheating on you when your back's turned? You think he's breaking his marriage vows left and right with his coworkers? Do you even know him _at all_?"

"Don't ask me if I know my husband," Lisa said hoarsely. "Don't--you don't know a fucking thing about it." And she was about to say it, she was about to say _he gave up Late Night for you_, but that would be surrender, somehow. "You act as if he's a complete innocent in this, and he's _not_, you don't even--"

"_Casey_ isn't the one starting the huge screaming matches late at night, Lisa. He's not the one eating himself up with jealousy, and he's not the one acting like a complete lunatic," Dan burst out. "God, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were _trying_ to fuck up your marriage--"

The crack of her hand against his face echoed oddly in the room.

Dan rubbed his face and looked at her, his expression carefully blank. "You're going to lose him. You're going to lose him and you won't even be able to blame it on me. 'Cause this...this is gonna be all on you, sweetheart."

He turned around and left, closing the door gently behind him, and Lisa wiped furiously at the few angry tears that slipped down her cheeks.

When Casey and Charlie came back, Lisa had cooked a dinner with all of their favorite foods, and if dinner was oddly quiet, at least there was no yelling, for which everyone was grateful.

Before she went to bed, Lisa thought, with sudden, ruthless clarity, _I can't stand the person this is turning me into._

 

_five: forgive your trespasses and all that we've been through_

Charlie watched in fascination. "Do they really have to shave all of your hair?"

Casey smiled ruefully as the razor made another pass over his head. "Yep. Surgeon needs to see where he's going, after all. Don't want him making a mistake when he starts cutting."

Charlie laughed. "No, guess not."

Some part of Lisa was surprised that they were actually laughing about this--it was brain surgery, for God's sake--but hell. "I'll leave you guys alone for a few minutes," she said gently.

Casey nodded a thank-you to her, and Lisa smiled and gave him a small wave. She'd already said everything important to him the night before; speaking now would just be redundant.

In the hallway, she found Dana pacing and talking to a woman with dark hair--her name was Natalie, Lisa remembered. Dan was over in the corner, sitting in a chair, looking more wound up than a clock.

She hesitated, then came over. "Hey," she said, awkwardly. Ever since Casey had finally confirmed the news she'd always half-expected ever since their divorce was finalized, she and Dan had settled into a kind of polite detente. Everyone always said it was a bad idea to fight with your ex's new significant other; Lisa figured the rules didn't change if that significant other happened to be a guy.

Dan looked up. "Hey," he said. "Take a seat."

Lisa sat down next to him. "You'd think they'd have more comfortable chairs, considering."

"Yeah, you really would," Dan said, obviously distracted. "Charlie in there with Casey?"

"Yeah," Lisa said. "I'm sure that when he comes out, he'll be asking me if he can shave his head."

Dan chuckled. "Casey can start a new trend. He'll love that." He looked over at her and said, "I thought you and Casey had decided that Charlie shouldn't wait around during the surgery."

Lisa wrinkled her nose. "We did. Casey didn't--" she was about to say _Casey didn't want him around here in case something went wrong,_ but amended it to, "--we didn't think it'd be a good idea. But then Charlie came to me last night and said that the only way he'd be going to school today was if we had him chained to his desk, so here he is." She shook her head and said, "God, he's just like his father. Like trying to reason with a brick wall."

Dan, who had always bristled when she'd made the slightest disparaging remark to Casey, just laughed. "Ain't that the truth."

They fell into a silence, thinking about the two people who bound them together, even now.

"I still can't believe he told you before me," Dan said abruptly.

Lisa didn't need to ask what about. "To be fair, I don't think he was planning on telling me first, that's just how it worked out." Lisa could make up a sharp reply about how she was Charlie's mother, and as such, deserved to know first--but really, that would be petty, and at this stage in her life, she'd learned how to let things go.

And Lisa could recall that night in perfect detail, Casey bringing Charlie home late at night, Lisa inviting him in for some coffee, and then Casey blurting it out. _I have this...thing. A brain condition._

When she looked over at Dan, she saw him twisting his hands in his lap. And she thought back to Dallas, to when the knowledge that it would always be _Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall_ was bile in her throat. She thought back to the years of anger and resentment and self-sabotage, and finally, finally--Lisa had the right thing to say to him.

"He really is going to be fine, you know," Lisa said gently.

Dan looked up for a split second and gave her a quick half-smile. "I know."

They sat in silence for a moment. Then Dan said, so quietly she almost missed it, "You know--one of the associate producers, Jeremy, he's doing this...inter-faith prayer thing later. If you wanted to join us."

Lisa nodded. "Yeah," she said, clearing her throat. "I'd like that."

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Headers come from lyrics by the band Garbage.


End file.
